For general purpose illumination requiring white light, solid-state lighting (SSL) devices are being investigated as alternatives to conventional lighting devices such as incandescent and fluorescent lighting devices. Incandescent lighting (IL) devices emit white light by thermal radiation from a hot, electrically resistive filament. The spectral quality and color-rendering accuracy of incandescent light is high, approaching the performance of an ideal black-body radiator. However, incandescent lighting suffers from very low energy efficiency and operating lifetimes, with most of the energy input being converted to heat rather than useful emission of visible light. Fluorescent lighting (FL) devices emit white light from phosphor-coated surfaces in response to irradiation of those surfaces by ultraviolet (UV) light generated from energized mercury vapor. Fluorescent lighting is more energy efficient and has higher operating lifetimes, but typically has poor spectral quality. Moreover, incandescent and fluorescent lighting require light bulbs that must remain sealed to maintain a vacuum or contain a gas, respectively, and are prone to breaking.
On the other hand, SSL devices do not require sealed bulbs, have robust designs that do not require flexible or fragile components, and are highly energy efficient. SSL devices typically utilize LED lamps that produce light in narrow ranges of wavelengths (e.g., red, green or blue). White light-emitting SSL devices have been provided in two different configurations. In one configuration, the white light-emitting SSL device utilizes a closely-spaced cluster of red, green and blue LEDs to produce white light from the spectral composite of emissions from the LEDs. This “RGB LED” configuration enables the color of the white light to be adjusted if the associated electronic circuitry is configured to enable adjustment of drive currents provided to (and thus adjustment of the intensities of) the individual LEDs. In another configuration, the SSL device utilizes a blue or UV LED packaged with one or more phosphors for converting the short-wavelength emission from the LED to longer-wavelength emissions, whereby white light is produced from the mixture of emissions in a manner similar to fluorescent lighting. Compared to RGB LED devices, the phosphor-converted LED approach can be lower in cost because it eliminates the need to control multiple different drive currents required for LEDs having active components of different compositions and spectral responses. However, the color of the output light produced by lighting devices utilizing phosphor-converted LED lamps typically is not adjustable. More generally, known designs for SSL device-based lighting devices have not provided sufficient high color rendering index (CRI) values and light distribution in comparison to IL and FL devices. Generally, conventional SSL lighting devices of any type typically exhibit CRI values of less than 80 and their ability to mix colors in a manner that produces pleasant color distribution has been poor. In addition, the typical design of a conventional SSL lighting device positions the LED and its attendant electrical connections and heat sink in a location that may occlude the output light, thereby reducing efficiency.
Because the human eye is very sensitive to small variations in color, the end user can sometimes detect variations in correlated color temperature (CCT) as small as 10-20 K. Hence, lighting devices must be held to tight specifications to avoid noticeable color variation in large installations. Variations in CCT and CRI typically arise in SSL lamps due to manufacturing variability and are manifested as visible color variations in lighting devices equipped with SSL lamps. Currently, there is no economical way to manufacture a large number of white lighting devices that output the same character (e.g., tone, hue, etc.) of white color. There is also no practical way to adjust output color of a lighting device once it has been manufactured. Consequently, a batch of manufactured SSL devices must be screened at the end of the manufacturing line (end of line, or EOL) and sorted into bins according to CCT, CRI and other properties. This process is known as “binning” and results in all lighting devices of a given bin having approximately the same color. Different bins may then be provided to different customers or for different lighting installation projects. Binning is disadvantageous because it adds time, effort and cost to the manufacturing process. Moreover, binning is an imperfect solution to the problem of color variation. Binning does not correct color variation but rather separates lighting devices with similar colors into different groups. Moreover, the variation in color among the lighting devices of a given bin may still be noticeable. For instance, a bin of lighting devices may be provided to a customer who then installs them as lighting fixtures in the ceiling of a large meeting room. Different persons in different areas of the room may notice non-uniformities in the light provided by the lighting fixtures due to the inadequacy of the binning process.
In addition, an end user may wish to adjust the tone or hue of the color provided by a lighting device. For example, in the case of a white lighting device the user may desire to adjust whether white light is warm (yellowish or reddish, e.g., CCT=2,600-3,700 K), neutral (e.g., CCT=3,700-5,000 K), or cool (bluish, e.g., CCT=5,000-10,000 K) for specific purposes such as general lighting in a relaxing environment, general lighting in an office environment, lighting for reading, etc. Also, the end user may be using a lighting device containing multiple lighting device units with respective SSL sources and light exits, or multiple lighting devices installed in the same location. In these latter cases, the end user may wish to adjust one or more lighting device units of a single lighting device, or one or more lighting devices grouped in close proximity, so that the light outputted by all lighting devices or lighting device units is uniform.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for providing improved designs of SSL devices. Particularly there is a need for enabling tighter controls over the color of the light outputted by SSL devices, improving CRI values and uniformity in light distribution, and reducing the number of SSL devices that must be rejected as a result of binning operations.